


What Kind of Day Has it Been?

by ac_MaryAgnes



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Co-Parenting, Diarrhea, F/M, Gen, Like really sick, Slice of Life, Vomit, but it will be fluffy, children being sick, gastroenteritis, no one said it was gonna be easy, stomach flu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 06:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10212083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ac_MaryAgnes/pseuds/ac_MaryAgnes
Summary: “Mommy?” a small, pitiful whisper filtered through the pre-morning dawn. “I threw up in my bed.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this. This isn't my usual fandom but the idea for this jumped into my head a day or so ago and it just sort of cranked itself out. I tried to keep the characters as close to the show as possible, but as I said - this isn't my usual fandom - so please forgive me if I got anyone terribly wrong. 
> 
> This is set sometime after the Forbes-Saltzman household moves back to Mystic Falls.

It started at five in the morning, a little finger tapping quietly on the master bedroom door.

“Mommy?” a small, pitiful whisper filtered through the pre-morning dawn. “I threw up in my bed.”

Caroline sat up, immediately awake. Josie stood framed in the doorway, hallway light glowing yellow behind her. Her little face was crumpled and red, wet with sweat and tears, as orange vomit dried on the front of her purple nightgown.

“Oh baby.” Caroline bolted out of bed and knelt in front of her daughter. Wiping her thumbs under the little girl’s eyes, she checked to see if Josie was running a fever. “It’s going to be okay – I promise. Here,” she turned the girl and started ushering her towards the bathroom, “I’ll get a warm bath started for you and we’ll strip the bed and pick out fresh jammies while the tub fills, okay?”

Josie sniffled and nodded.

By the time Caroline got to the twin’s room, Lizzie was also awake, crying over her own puddle of vomit.

“Perfect,” Caroline muttered under her breath. Holding her breath, she reached out to the other girl. “It’s gonna be okay, Lizzie. You and Josie are going to have a nice bath and clean beds. Sometimes people get sick and it’s okay.”

Changing the beds was easy; bathing two sick three-year-olds was also (surprisingly) easy. Getting them to lie down again was not.

No matter how clean the beds or fresh the sheets, neither girl wanted to sleep in a bed they had thrown up in. Honestly, Caroline couldn’t blame them. They all ended up cuddling on the couch with the last of the chicken broth and flat ginger ale, watching Elmo Saves Christmas even though it was well past that time of year. Two extra-large mixing bowls sat on the floor, ready for Caroline to grab in case either girl showed signs of tossing what little they had eaten again.

Alric called at eight o’clock just as the twins started to doze off again. Luckily, the phone only rang once before Caroline could catch it. The girls remained still, tucked against her sides.

“Stay away,” she cautioned softly. “There is sickness in this house and it is gross.”

“Aw, no,” his voice soothed, filled with dismay. “What happened?”

“Five AM wake up call, barf edition. In stereo, too.”

“Aren’t you lucky,” he laughed.

“I've already emailed my boss at the station that I had to take a sick day,” Caroline breezed, running her fingers through Josie’s hair as the girl snuggled in closer. “I know you said you’d take them all day, but maybe tomorrow?”

“Care, no.” She could practically see the look on his face as he spoke. “Two little girls with the flu? Even the strongest soul would waiver. I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Ric-“

“Want me to pick anything up?”

Caroline resisted the urge to sigh, but gave in to rolling her eyes. “They’re sleeping now and seem to be keeping soup and ginger ale down, but they need electrolytes. No sports drinks – those have too much sugar. And pick up some chicken broth or bouillon cubes. They have to stay hydrated. There’s no diarrhea yet, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be diligent about keeping them from getting dehydrated.”

Alric couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped. Major Forbes, directing her troops through a crisis. “I’ll get broth, Pedialyte and freeze pops.”

“The sugar in freeze pops-“

“Won’t kill either child, Care. They’ll be fine.”

He hung up before she could argue much more with him, which was annoying.

The twins rested until Ric stepped through the door, using the spare key Caroline had given him expressly for these sorts of situations. He managed to put everything away without Caroline directing, which was a feat he’d never imagined she’d let him accomplish. But she was bracketed by two three-year-olds and couldn’t get up without waking them, which allowed him free-reign in her kitchen.

Alric dropped a kiss on each of the girls’ foreheads and checked them for a temperature, then reached over and kissed Caroline’s cheek. “They both feel a little warm. How long have they been asleep?”

“Not very long.” Caroline watched him settle on Lizzie’s other side and gave him a tired smile. “I was actually thinking of seeing if they’d sleep through me changing the movie from Elmo to something…”

“A little more grown-up?”

Caroline chuckled, scrunching her nose. “Maybe a little. But I didn’t want to get up because I didn’t want to wake them by accident. Since you’re here now, though… maybe you could change it for me?”

Alric squinted at her. “What were you thinking of putting in instead?”

Caroline screwed her lips to the side. “Someone Marry Barry.” His eyebrows rose towards his hairline but she shrugged, careful not to jostle the girls leaning against her. “Please?”

The twins slept through most of the movie, but near the end Lizzie started squirming.

“Mommy, I gotta go to the potty.”

“Okay, baby.” Caroline scooped the girl up and rushed carefully to the bathroom. Just in time.

“Oh no,” Lizzie whimpered and tears started to well in her eyes. “Mommy, I don’t feel good.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie. I know it feels bad, but you’re gonna be just fine.” But it was not fine because while Lizzie was having a near-explosive episode on the toilet, she threw up all over her mother. A lot.

“Oh god. Ric!”

“I don’t like being sick!” Lizzie wailed, tears and snot mixing with the bits of vomit on her chin.

“Ric!” Caroline turned back to her daughter and stroke her hair. “I know it’s scary, baby, and I know its hurts. But it’s really going to be okay. Daddy’s going to come in and help you take another bath, alright?”

Alric rushed into the bathroom, holding Josie up and away from him by her upper arms. The child was sobbing uncontrollably, shirt soaked with vomit and pants a distressing colour of red-brown.

“This is a really bad day, huh girls?” His voice was even and light as he kicked the bath mat out of the way so he could set his daughter down in front of the tub. “But look! Mommy and Daddy are here and everything’s going to be fine.”

“Exactly.” Caroline turned, keeping one hand on Lizzie, and reached out to stroke Josie’s back. "It's going to be okay, sweetie."

The shower warmed quickly and both of the girls submitted to being hosed off before the tub was filled. Alric shooed Caroline out, insisting that she clean herself up and that he could handle the girls.

“I’ll start the laundry, too,” he said. “Just leave your clothes where I can grab them, okay?”

“How, um… How bad was the couch hit?”

Alric shook his head. “We’d just started moving to the bathroom. By some miracle, things were contained, though there is a pile in the kitchen that needs to be mopped. But go. Shower. I got this.”

“Right,” she said with a nod. Caroline tried not to think about what was getting in her hair as she peeled her clothes off. They landed with a wet plop on the floor of the master bathroom, steam filling the room as the shower was quickly flicked on. The girls had been sick before – they had picked up all sorts of bugs and colds from day care back in Dallas – so it wasn’t as if Caroline didn’t know the horrors of gastroenteritis. But it was always gross.

After a bath, the girls each got a dose of Children’s Tylenol and took another nap on the couch. Thankfully, things remained fairly uneventful thru lunchtime. They woke up hungry just as Caroline and Ric were finishing up folding the now-clean laundry.

“Think you two can keep down some more broth?”

The girls looked at each other, noses scrunched in distaste.

“I don’t like that stuff, Mommy,” Lizzie told her.

Josie nodded. “It’s too salty.”

Ric knelt in front of them and grabbed their hands. “If you both finish one bowl, Mommy and I will let you share a freeze pop.”

“Ric-“

“A purple one?”

Alric nodded solemnly. “Absolutely.”

The twins looked at each other again, but ultimately acquiesced.

“Take your time eating it,” Caroline instructed, watching her daughters carefully. “I know it tastes bad, but eat one spoonful at a time. Josie, over the bowl please.”

The twins each managed to keep down their small bowls of broth, though they were very vocal of how much they didn’t like it. Bonnie called as they were doling out the freeze pop.

“Oh crap,” Caroline mumbled as she connected the call. “Hi Bonnie! We were supposed to have lunch today.”

“Yeah.” Bonnie recognized that tone of voice. “Did something happen?”

“The twins woke up with a really bad stomach bug. I took today off work but I forgot to call you and I’m so sorry.”

“Ric’s not there?”

Caroline frowned, surprised that her best friend would ask that. “Of course he’s here. But taking care of two sick little girls isn’t exactly a one-person job, Bon.”

“No, of course.” Immediately apologetic, Bonnie corrected herself. “He was going to have the girls all day anyway, so naturally he’s there with you. Should I come by? Do you guys need anything?”

Caroline looked at Ric, talking quietly with the girls as they sucked on their grape freeze pop, and shook her head. “No. Ric and I have it covered. It’s best you stay away in case you catch it by accident. I’m pretty sure Ric’s gonna get it, even though I’m the one they threw up on.”

“Oh, no!” Bonnie couldn’t help the few dismayed chuckles that escaped and Caroline ended up giggling right along with her.

“Yeah, that was pretty bad. But thank you for asking. And I really am sorry for not calling to cancel sooner.”

“It’s no problem! Kids can’t help when they get sick. I’ll call tomorrow and see how everyone’s doing, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

After lunch, Ric pulled out the sofa bed in the living room and the girls piled it with pillows. Caroline showed her daughters the best way to build a pillow fort as Ric queued up a Bubble Guppies marathon. Josie got the dry-heaves around the third episode, but both girls managed to keep everything down and eventually settled down for another nap. Ric’s fingers trailed across Caroline’s shoulder as he muted the volume and changed the channel. He kept his eyes on the TV, but he smiled when he felt her looking at him.

“Does it surprise you?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed.

“What?”

“That we’re good at this.” His head nodded towards the girls sleeping between them as he settled on a mundane sitcom. “Sick days and all the… the bodily fluids that come with them.”

She chewed the question over, before eventually shaking her head. “No. Well, sometimes but when I think about it, it doesn’t surprise me at all.” He looked at her, surprised. “We’ve both gone through some pretty crazy shit, Ric. We’re two of the most capable people I know.”

“And modest, too.”

She gave him a look. “You know what I mean. The girls surprise me constantly, but this?” She shook her head, smiling. “I think overall we’re getting pretty good at this whole ‘parenting’ thing.”

“Even though sick days are probably as normal as we’re going to get? With Gemini Twins, a vampire for a mom and a… whatever I am as a dad?”

His hand was still on her shoulder so she bent her head to brush her cheek against his fingers. “My mom would say we’d have to adjust our definition of ‘normal.'” After a moment, she sighed. “We’re doing the best we know how, Ric.”

Ric looked over at her in the low light of the TV. He stroked his fingers over her cheek again, and took a deep breath. As he let it out slowly, he turned back to the screen and let his mind shut off for a little while.

Around five PM, a knock came at the back door and Damon breezed in without waiting for it to be answered.

“Who's got two thumbs, immunity to human diseases, and is way better looking than Santa Claus?” Damon presented himself to the kitchen with a game-show smile, brandishing two pink and purple gift bags, a bouquet of flowers, and a bottle of bourbon.

“What are you doing here?” Caroline crossed her arms and glowered at the other vampire while Ric moved forward into the kitchen.

“Shhh,” he hissed, finger in front of his mouth. “The girls are napping, Damon. But yeah – what are you doing here?”

The dark haired vampire shrugged and put his presents down on the counter. “A little birdie told me the girls were sick. I thought I’d come and spread some Get Well cheer.” With a flourish, the flowers were thrust into Caroline’s arms. The liquor was handled a bit more carefully as he passed it to Ric. “To be fair, Bon picked out the gifts and the flowers.”

Ric frowned, inspected the label of the bottle, and put it aside. “And you graciously decided to deliver these all by your lonesome?”

Damon shrugged blithely. “I am a kind and generous soul.”

“Which means Bonnie told you to,” Caroline groused. But the flowers were pretty so she handled them carefully as she went about getting a vase for them.

“Couldn’t have our sweet Bon-Bon getting sick.” Damon smiled again, lips pulling up into an obviously fake gesture of sincerity.

“Mommy.” The three adults turned and saw the twins in the kitchen doorway, holding hands and rubbing their eyes. “We’re hungry.”

“Hey babies.” Caroline smiled as she crossed the room to her daughters, crouching down to their eye level. “How was your nap?”

The girls shrugged and pouted at her.

“I want something to eat, Mommy,” Lizzie demanded, her small voice soft and tired.

Josie’s dark head nodded emphatically. “Me too.”

Hunger was a good sign. “Something to eat, huh? How about… mashed potatoes? And maybe some chicken soup?”

“With star noodles,” Josie insisted.

“Coming right up,” Ric said, moving to the pantry. “Hey girls, your Aunt Bonnie sent Damon here with get well presents for you. Why don’t you sit at the table and open them while your Mom and I get your food ready?”

“We got presents?” Both of the girls perked up and looked towards the man standing near the back door.

Damon’s smile became genuine. “Of course you do!” He helped both girls into their chairs and placed the iridescent pink bags in front of them. “Aunt Bonnie couldn’t be here to give them to you, but she wanted you both to know that she hopes you get better soon.”

“Being sick is no fun,” Lizzie whispered as she pulled the purple tissue paper from her bag.

Damon couldn’t possibly remember being sick at the girl’s age, but he nodded anyway. “I’ll bet.”

“Mommy!” Josie gasped and pulled her toy from it’s wrapping. “We got Trolls!”

Caroline looked up from the pot on the stove. “Aunt Bonnie’s the best.”

The twins ate all of their dinner, took one last dose of Tylenol, and played with their new toys until bedtime. Damon somehow managed to find the patience to stick it out and play with them. Ric ended up being the one to read them The Book With No Pictures three times, leaving Caroline to clean up. Which she did, as slowly as possible. But eventually she had to address Damon, who was still there after everything.

She studied him, eyes narrowed and arms across her chest. “You’re still here.”

“Astute observation, Barbie. Glad to see you’re not wasting that college education.”

Caroline pursed her lips, fingers flexing against her arms. “Why are you still here, Damon? What do you want?”

He stared at her, face blank as he weighed out how much he was willing to tell her. “I need Ric’s help with something. Nothing to get your panties in a bunch over.”

“And you had to be here in person for that? Couldn’t have picked up a phone?”

“I’m not really feeling the love here, Care-Bear,” Damon complained, stepping closer. He puffed out his chest and planted his fists on his hips, but as always Caroline was unwavering.

“I’m perfectly loving. I just don’t like you.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yours, as always.”

“Enough,” Ric said, pitching his voice over both of them as he came down the stairs. “The girls really need to sleep.” A lingering kiss was dropped onto Caroline’s head as he pressed a hand to her back.

“You were a trooper today, babe,” he murmured. She ducked her head with a smile and leaned back into him.

“Um, excuse me,” Damon waved a hand, brows furrowing over his icy eyes. “I have an actual problem and I need my best friend to help me solve it.”

Caroline turned Ric, line of agitation already forming between her brows, and he raised a hand to ward off whatever she was going to say. “I’ll take care of this, Care. Why don’t you go get a glass of wine and have a bubble bath?”

Caroline thought that over for a moment. “If you end this early enough, I’ll let you join me.”

Damon huffed, slapping his hands against his thighs as he turned away, but Ric smiled. “I’ll do my best.”

She grinned, satisfied, and lifted onto her toes for a kiss, putting an extra sway in her step as she walked away. 

Ric watched the blonde climb the stairs and waited until she was well out of sight before turning to Damon. “I have a beautiful woman naked under a mound of bubbles waiting for me – we will take care of this quickly and then you will leave.”

“Yeah yeah.” Damon huffed out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair.

“So? Seriously, Damon, I know you wouldn’t come here unless you had a real problem. At least, it had better be a real problem.”

“It is a real problem,” Damon promised. “Bonnie’s having visions of a thing that she thinks might live under Mystic Falls. I was wondering if you wanted to go spelunking tonight.”

Alric blinked once, twice, and then pointed to the door. “Get out.”

“Ric-“

“This could have waited until tomorrow.” Ric grabbed Damon by the shoulders, turned him, and marched the vampire to the door. “My children were throwing up all day. Violent diarrhea is a thing Caroline and I had to deal with. I am not going spelunking with you after all that.”

“Oh now that’s disgusting,” Damon complained, dragging his feet.

“It really was. But now you are going to go home and I’m going to have a bath. There will be bubbles and wine and all manner of things I’m not going to talk to you about. Call me tomorrow about the thing that may or may not live under this hellscape of a town.”

Damon managed to keep his feet under himself as Ric pushed him out the door, but turned back with a scowl. “Bonnie sent me here to tell you about this. She thinks it might be serious.”

“Then she might decide it’s not serious by morning.” Ric shut the door before Damon could say anything else. The lock slid firmly into place and after sealing the rest of the house and turning the lights off, he went to find Caroline.

The room was dim when he walked in, tea lights flickering softly on the counter and windowsill. Music piped softly from the bedroom. Caroline’s hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, a few strands curling into the bubbly water around her shoulders. On the ground near the tub was a bottle of red wine and a glass half-full. Another glass hung in Caroline’s left hand, the diamond in her ring winking in the low candlelight. Her eyes were dark and her smile was a slow, happy thing interrupted by teeth pressing into her bottom lip.

“Just in time,” she told him.

“Happy to accommodate, Miss Forbes.” Ric’s clothes hit the floor, though he remembered to put them in the hamper before Caroline could tell him to. “Scooch up.”

He slotted himself behind her, water slopping a little over the edge, and after a few moments of adjustment he grabbed the extra glass from the floor. She settled against his chest, fitting her head in the spot under his chin. His free arm dipped below the water and wrapped around her waist, hugging her to him.

“A much better ending to today than how it began,” she sighed.

Ric pressed a kiss to her hair and hummed in agreement. “Tomorrow will be better.”

Caroline was silent for a moment, basking in the warmth of the bath and the solid presence of the man behind her. “So what was making Damon do his Crazy Eyes dance this time?”

Ric shook his head and took a sip of his wine. “Damon wanted to know if I was up for going cave diving. Bonnie’s had a vision that something might be living under the town.”

She frowned. “She didn’t mention anything when she called earlier.”

“I know. So I told him we’d get to it tomorrow. Tonight, I want my fiancée in my arms because we battled the stomach bug and won.”

"I’ll drink to that,” she told him, and clinked her glass against his.

[Of course, the next morning, Ric would bolt out of bed and rush to the bathroom. He’d spend the rest of the day puking his guts up, and cave diving with Damon would have to wait another twenty-four hours.]

**Author's Note:**

> When I started writing this, I went looking for Caroline/Alric works just to see what was already out there, and I couldn't find a single thing! I was shocked - how could anyone miss this perfect opportunity for angst, fluff and family fun!?! But perhaps I wasn't looking hard enough, so if anyone has any recs, lemme know.


End file.
